Reed Richards (Earth-616)/Expanded History/Year Nine
Go Back to Year Eight __TOC__ Strange Days Brought to a possible future by Hyperstorm, Mister Fantastic, and Doctor Doom were tortured by their captor. Refusing to surrender, Reed continued to fight back only to find himself banished to the Hyborean age. Instantly attacked by a group of bandits and a wizard, Reed easily defeated them. Retreating to a nearby cave, Reed then began trying to construct a make-shift lab, but the lack of technology made trying to return home impossible. When the locals began trying to encroach on his domain, Reed make it appear that the area around his cave was haunted by demons so that he could live out his exile uninterrupted. After months trapped in this era, Mister Fantastic continued to apply his inventive genius to try and keep himself busy. Staying away from the people of this era proved more difficult. He eventually came to the aid of a young boy who was being terrorised by a troll named Glot. Eventually, the Fantastic Four began their battle against Hyperstorm and found themselves banished to the Hyborean era along with the Sub-Mariner and Kristoff Vernard. When they found Reed, Richards thought they were nothing more than a trick created by Hyperstorm to torture him. After a brief battle, he soon realized that it was really his friends and family and he was happily reunited with his wife. As Kristoff Vernard worked on a time machine to get them out of this era, the group was attacked by the wizard known as Artabazus who managed to take the device and capture most of the heroes. About to be burned at the stake, Reed and the others are freed by the Thing and a band of bandits. During the ensuing battle, Reed battled Artabazus across time and space, ultimately Reed won when the wizard was dumped in Salem during the witch trials and was burned at the stake. With the immediate threat over, Mister Fantastic and the others prepared to take the battle to Hyperstorm. Returning to Hyperstorm's era, Mister Fantastic led the Fantastic Four and their allies in a battle against Hyperstorm's forces. Ultimately, Hyperstorm entered the battle and easily trounced Reed and the others. The tide of battle ended up turning when the Invisible Woman used her increased powers against their foe combined with Doom's newly built siphoning device. Deciding that the time to defeat their foes was not now, Hyperstorm banished the Fantastic Four and their allies back to their proper era, warning them that the battle had just begun. Resettling Once back in their native reality, Reed paid a visit to the headquarters of Fantastic Force where he is reunited with his son. Back at the Four Freedoms, Reed had Psi-Lord scan his mind to make sure that Hyperstorm didn't plant any surprises in his mind. Getting the all clear, it began to sink in just how much changed during his "death". He demanding his father provide answers on how to beat Hyperstorm, Reed struggled to create weapons to deal with their foe. Unfortunately, this process was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Gorgon of the Inhumans. While waiting for Gorgon to come around, the Fantastic Four were called to a supposed bomb threat at a science lab. Instead, they discovered that Blastaar was loose on Earth thanks to Dr. Wilson Ramos using untested Negative Zone technology. The group was easily able to defeat Blastaar and banish him back to the Negative Zone once more. When Gorgon revived, the Fantastic Four learned that Black Bolt had gone insane after the tuning fork on his forehead was damaged in a previous battle. The Fantastic Four tracked Black Bolt down to Hoover Dam where they assisted the Inhumans in containing their leader. Although they succeeded in containing Black Bolt, the Invisible Woman pushed her powers too far. Black Bolt's tuning fork was damaged during the events of Returning to their headquarters, Reed overheard the Sub-Mariner trying to push himself onto his wife and attacked him. The two battled across New York until Sue and the others tracked them down and forced them to stop. Telling Namor that she is still devoted to her husband, she and Reed returned home while the Sub-Mariner parted company. The team was later woken up late at night thanks to a prank being played on Johnny by Spider-Man. This corresponded with a portal opening in the middle of their headquarters leading to the realm of Perrinois. When the Thing was captured by the evil wizard Rasheed ven Garmchee, Reed and the others ventured into Perrinois and rescued him. Hyperstorm Down Reed began to realize that he was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder following his captivity by Hyperstorm and started making cleaning up his image. He then used his skills to repair Black Bolt's tuning fork, restoring his sanity. Reed then sought to track down the Silver Surfer and get his assistance in stopping Hyperstorm. To do so, he traveled into the Negative Zone and cross the Crossroads to Infinity to reach the Surfer. Learning where Galactus was seemingly slain. When he returned to Earth, Reed and the team failed to stop a data theft from the Doctor Doom from the year 2099 AD. To make matters worse, Hyperstorm reached out and altered the timeline replacing Psi-Lord with his younger self once again. Despite this, Reed and Sue were happy to have their son back at his proper age. Galactus was seemingly killed by Morg who used the Ultimate Nullifier against his former master in Demanding answers from his father, Reed and the others learn that Hyperstorm comes from a future where Franklin had a child and that Hyperstorm is this boy. With a space ship, the Fantastic Four and Nathaniel Richards venture to the place where Galactus seemingly died. Upon their arrival, Hyperstorm arrived to try and stop them from opening a portal to the dimension where Galactus shunted himself into. However, their foe failed to stop Reed from completing his device and opening a portal. Galactus then drained Hyperstorm's power and trapped him in the other dimension, ending his threat of Hyperstorm. Onslaught By this point the malevolent psychic entity known as Onslaught began posing as Franklin's imaginary friend Charlie in order to lull the boy into a false sense of security. The Fantastic Four later mobilized during an attack on the Avengers by Loki. Eventually, Onslaught began enacting his plan by trying to slay the X-Men. Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four were blissfully unaware of what was going on, thinking that Franklin's imaginary friend was just that. Possessing the body of Charles Xavier, Onslaught attempted to convince Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman to allow him to take Franklin to the Xavier Institute. When the couple refused to turn the boy over, Onslaught attacked by force. Even with the eventual arrival of members of the X-Men and the Avengers, Onslaught managed to abscond with Franklin. Soon Onslaught launched a full-scale assault on New York City by unleashing an army of Sentinels upon it. While the Fantastic Four and their allies regrouped atop the Four Freedoms Plaza. As they began working on a means of counteracting Onslaught, their foe unleashed a massive electromagnetic pulse that crippled not only the heroes but the entire city. Onslaught then erected a massive citadel in the middle of Central Park. While the heroes regrouped, the Invisible Woman gathered a team to try and rescue Franklin, while Reed stayed behind to tend to the wounded and to get their headquarters back up and running. Although they managed to free Charles Xavier from Onslaught, their ever evolving foe managed to force them back before they could save the boy. Mister Fantastic was present when another team, led by the Hulk, attempted to breach Onslaught's citadel. However, their foe used his mental powers to deceive his enemies in order to make them distrust the Hulk. As Reed continued to work on contingencies to fight against Onslaught, Franklin attempted to use his powers to contact his family. Onslaught intercepted this and used the child's powers to create constructs of many of the Fantastic Four's foes and unleash them upon the Four Freedoms Plaza. Reed and the others were assisted by their allies Kristoff Vernard, the Inhumans, the Sub-Mariner, She-Hulk, Agatha Harkness, as well as an unexpected assist from Doctor Doom. Building a device to banish the remaining constructs, Mister Fantastic mobilized his allies for a final battle with Onslaught. By this point, Onslaught had also captured the powerful psi known as the X-Man as part of his bid to control the Earth. After seeing how the mutants of the X-Men's reality ultimately led to its destruction, Onslaught decided that he would destroy the Earth instead. At that moment, the Fantastic Four and their allies were preparing to take their final battle to Onslaught. X-Man was captured by Onslaught in . He comes from Earth-295 a reality ruled by Apocalypse. At the time of this story, per that reality was seemingly destroyed. However as revealed in that reality was actually preserved and continues to endure. The Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Avengers then went to face Onslaught in Central Park for one final attempt to stop their foe. Onslaught, in turn, used Franklin's powers to create a second sun close to Earth that threatened to wipe out all life by its opposing gravity. During the ensuing battle, Phoenix used her powers to shut down the Bruce Banner's portion of the Hulk's mind. The savage Hulk then attacked Onslaught and in the fury of the attack, the gamma-spawned monster managed to shatter Onslaughts armor. However, instead of killing their foe, it merely revealed Onslaught's final evolution: A being of pure psychic energy. With Onslaught capable of spreading all across the world, Mister Fantastic deduced that a suitable vessel could allow them to contain and destroy Onslaught, however, only non-mutants could be used as a vessel. The gathered heroes then sacrificed their lives by diving into Onslaught to absorb all the energy. In went the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom and a number of their allies. With Onslaught suitably contained, the X-Men unleashed their full power destroying Onslaught. Although Franklin and the X-Man were freed in the resulting destruction, Earth's greatest heroes were seemingly annihilated. Heroes Reborn However, Earth's heroes weren't killed as everyone thought. Instead, Franklin's used his powers to create a pocket universe with its own version of Earth where they lived out alternate versions of their lives. They did so with no memories of their past lives and false memories of a past that never existed. In this "reborn" life, Reed Richards attended State University along with Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Victor von Doom, Henry Pym, and Conner "Rebel" O'Reilly. Working on an exo-suit project together the dubbed themselves the Atomic Knights of the Round Table. Seeking to get ahead of the project, Victor attempted his own test on the technology, ignoring Reed's warnings and it ended up blowing up on his face. Victor then left school when he went on a path to becoming Doctor Doom once again. "Years"The "past" on Counter-Earth are all false memories as explained in . later, Reed began working on a space shuttle project that was funded by his fiancee Sue Storm's family business. Tony Stark began developing his Promethean Armor, Rebel O'Reily seemingly died while testing it. Reed went to try and talk Tony out of his funk. Soon Reed had completed his new experiment spacecraft and was about to launch it. However, with a strange stellar anomaly approaching the planet, someone posing as SHIELD agent Wyatt Wingfoot sought to shut down the project. Not wishing to miss his test flight, Reed along with Sue, her brother Johnny and Ben Grimm broke free from their confines stole the ship and flew into space to examine the anomaly. Wingfoot responded by trying to blow it up with a nuclear weapon. The combination of the alien energies and the nuclear bomb bombarded Reed's ship causing it to crash land on a Pacific Island. There they discovered that they had gained powers on par with their abilities before they were "reborn". Exploring the island the newly reformed Fantastic Four stumbled upon the domain of the Mole Man. Repeat Performances During their battle against the Mole Man, Reed notices strange inscriptions in the caverns. Ultimately, the battle ended in a much similar fashion to the Fantastic Four's original battle with the Mole Man. They were recovered and quarantined by SHIELD at the command of their leader Nick Fury. However, this came to a quick end when the Sub-Mariner launched an attack on New York City after being tricked by Warlord Krang. Modifying SHIELD uniforms, Reed. and his friends began calling themselves the Fantastic Four. As they dived into battle, Namor unleashed the massive whale Giganto upon the city. With the assistance of the Avengers Captain America and Thor assisted in fending off the Atlantean invasion. Eventually, Krang's deception was revealed, and Giganto killed. This instantly made the Fantastic Four a hero in the public eye. They then moved into the Baxter Building. When the Avengers later battled Kang, the Fantastic Four were otherwise occupied but the heroes eventually stopped him on their own. When SHIELD sought to capture the newly created Hulk, SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell called in the Fantastic Four for Reed's expertise. However, the search turned up nothing. Bruce Banner was transformed into the Hulk again in As the team seemed well adept with their powers, Mister Fantastic began investigating how they could command their abilities as though they had years of experience. Also investigating the source of their powers, Reed had detected that something crash landed in the African nation of Wakanda. Leaving Ben and Johnny behind, Reed and Sue ventured to the country where they were "introduced" to the nation's ruler, T'Challa, the Black Panther. When trying to recover whatever crash landed on Earth, the trio discovered the man posing as Wyatt Wingfoot absconding this a strange humanoid being. When they attempted to stop him, Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, and the Black Panther were incapacitated. They were then taken to Latveria where they were brought before Doctor Doom. Doom showed his prisoner what it was they sought, a powerful alien called the Silver Surfer. While Doom sought to steal the Surfer's cosmic powers, Johnny and Ben crashed the experiment with the real Wyatt Wingfoot. As it turned out Doom's ally was actually a Skrull named Kl'rt. In the ensuing battle, Kl'rt absorbed some of the Surfer's powers transforming him into the Super-Skrull. In the ensuing battle against the Super-Skrull, the Fantastic Four learned that the Surfer served a master, the world devourer known as Galactus. When they freed the Surfer he unleashed his power on the Skrull, slaying him before returning to the stars. Industrial Revolution The Hulk eventually cut a swath of destruction that led them all the way to the Avengers Hydrobase headquarters. His attack compromised the Gamma Core of the base which could caused a powerful chain reaction. Reverting to human form, Bruce Banner then broke into the Baxter Building to seek the Fantastic Four's aid in shutting down the Core before it was too late. With the Avengers and Iron Man in tow, Banner led the Fantastic Four deep into the ruined island base in order to find the Gamma Core. However, the close proximity to the gamma radiation caused Banner to transform into the Hulk once more. While the Invisible Woman managed to calm down the Hulk, Mister Fantastic and Iron Man instructed the brute on how to shut down the Gamma Core so they could avert disaster. During this process, there was a strange flash of light and the heroes caught a brief glimpse of Onslaught before he vanished again. Yet another clue of their past lives. Onslaught's actual return did not happen until a few years later in . In the aftermath of the battle, the Avengers broke away from SHIELD and became an independent organization. Clues to the Past While the Thing was recovering in hospital, Reed took the rest of the team on an exploration of the "newly discovered" Negative Zone. There they briefly battled Blastaar before they were taken away by the Watcher who showed them a glimpse of their past lives. Mister Fantastic was made to revisit one of the Fantastic Four's more recent clashes with the X-Men. After the bizarre experience, they were returned to Earth to try and make sense of what they saw. The battle that Reed sees in was the fight between the Fantastic Four and the X-Men from - Back on their native Earth, Doctor Strange discovered a strange energy emanating from the Hulk. Using it, he found a passage to Franklin's pocket universe where the alternate Hulk was engaged in another rampage. When the Fantastic Four and Iron Man arrived on the scene, Doctor Strange tried to convince them of their situation, but none of them believed Strange. Although he warned how the two Hulks were somehow threatening the existence of both worlds, Strange was shunted back to his home reality when the Hulk there broke free of the Doctor's mystical barriers. Inhumanity Revisited By this point, Sue was starting to get haunted by images of a child that she has no memory of happening, yet another tie to the past they no longer remember. The Fantastic Four were next invited to the unveiling of an ancient tablet that was discovered in Tibet. Reed noted that the inscriptions resembled those found in the Mole Man's caverns. The tablet was stolen back by members of the Inhuman Royal Family. In the ensuing battle, the Human Torch was injured and taken by the Inhumans. Reed and the others then tracked them to the Inhumans hidden city of Attilan but they were blasted out of the sky by Black Bolt and were taken prisoner. Brought before the Inhuman royal family, the Fantastic Four learned that they worshiped Galactus and his four heralds. Thinking Johnny to be their prisoner, the Fantastic Four broke free, but in the ensuing battle, they discovered that Johnny wasn't a prisoner but a guest. They then learned that Inhumans needed assistance in stopping Black Bolt's brother Maximus the Mad who was seeking to access the Terrigen Mists that were located deep below the Inhuman city. Although the Fantastic Four managed to stop Maximus, it was not before he was able to expose Crystal to the Mists. Reed later attended the funeral for Rebel O'Reilly, who had apparently survived only to sacrifice his life to save his friend Tony Stark. Stark explained his own trip into the past which revealed an alternate history of which he had no memory of. The pair were visited by the Watcher who warned them that they must remember who they are and stop the coming of Galactus before it was too late. Heroes Reunited During a quiet period, the Fantastic Four decided that they were going to spend the day in Central Park. There, Sue revealed to Reed that she believed she was pregnant, much to his surprise. Not long after this, the Fantastic Four were attacked by Terrax, one of the heralds of Galactus who had come to test his strength against them as his master approached. The Fantastic Four were barley able to defeat Terrax when they were visited by two more Heralds: Firelord and Plasma. Although Sue states that she is pregnant in this story, this fact is never mentioned again. An explanation is not forthcoming. Although one could assume that this was a false pregnancy. Although the Fantastic Four recovered from the initial onslaught, they were eventually saved by the Silver Surfer who was sympathetic to the heroes due to their earlier rescue. The Fantastic Four were later picked up by SHIELD and joined with the Avengers. When Nick Fury showed them the ship that was coming their way, he split the heroes up into groups to stop the various terraformers that Galactus uses to consume the Earth. While the heroes were sent around the world, Reed worked in the SHIELD Helicarrier trying to build a device that could stop Galactus. As the heroes fell, Doctor Doom arrived with armor to absorb the Surfer's power, but it was not enough to stop Galactus. Seeing that the battle was lost, Doom traveled back in time to prevent the tragedy, leaving Reed and the others to die. It appears that time travel in Franklin's Pocket Dimension didn't create an alternate reality, instead it wound back time. One possible explanation is provided in Fantastic Four Vol 5 which states that Franklin's universe created whatever he needed at the time. With each time that Doctor Doom went back in time events on the world happened differently. The second time around the Fantastic Four clashed with the Silver Surfer in Russia but were annihilated when Doctor Doom unleashed nuclear weapons on them. When Doom failed to stop Galactus again, he went backward in time once more. The third time, the Fantastic Four were meeting the Hulkbusters when they learned of Galactus' approach. The Fantastic Four were then killed by the Heralds, Mister Fantastic was specifically killed by Plasma. The last time Doom went back, he managed to convince the Avengers to join him in attacking the Heralds of Galactus just as they were launching their initial attack against the Fantastic Four, saving the teams life. Reed rejoined the Atomic Knights to utilize the various technologies that Doom brought back and they were able to build a nullifying device to destroy Galactus. By this point the Silver Surfer had decided to work against his moster and sacrificed his life to destroy Galactus, saving the Earth in the process. =Further Reading= * Mister Fantastic: Year Ten * Return to Expanded History Main Page =Continuity Notes= =References=